Remember that software piracy can be a big issue for an after school computer club.
So don't forget to petition the school for a fat pipe with multiple IPs so you can hook up a few people to kazaa and gnutella at the same time without all that NAT crap.
A beowulf cluster of these beasties, kitted out with 802.11g wireless networking and mounted on RC model vehicles, roaming around autonimously, trying to find unsecured wifi hotspots so you can use their bandwidth for p2p!
Anti-Virus software checks binaries' integrity..
on
Linus on DRM
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· Score: 3, Informative
Norton anti-virus on the win32 platform will 'innoculate' binaries (ThunderByte antivirus did this best I believe, alas, they're a gonner). Cf. tripwire.
If the checksum doesn't match, the binary changed, and the app won't run. Seems pretty sane.
Also, windows XP comes with "Driver Signing" which is basically an extortion bid to squeeze money from hardware suppliers (and perhaps to divert some of their cash from development of drivers for other OSes). Though fundamentally, it is not a bad idea to have some sort of check that the driver you just downloaded is in fact "blessed" by the manufacturer, if only for warranty purposes.
Checking checksums or signatures even does NOT equal DRM. As Linus said, this is something you can choose to use. Root gets a say in it (though in corporate environments it might still suck if you're not root).
DRM is not meant to be optional, it is meant to enforce license conditions ('rights'). Not security. Not integrity. Not trust. Making the possible impossible based not on security or convenience, but on a shrink-wrap license.
Sony Clie handhelds run the PalmOS. The memorysticks are used for storage, not RAM, as PalmOS can't use that much memory for RAM. Which is part of the reason why they're extending PalmOS.
So businesses and govornments are going to use software that anyone can see the source code for. Does anyone else see this as a security risk?
Businesses and "govornments" are using hardware, electricity and even a sort of carbon-based lifeforms as employees we all know the exact specs of (well almost in the latter case). How is that for a security risk?
If only government employees were closed source mutants that can't get infected with anthrax and run off of 431.8 Volts!
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies?
on
Browser Cookie Patent
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· Score: 3, Informative
Actually, according to this page, the first spam message ever was by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1978. Too bad you can't patent stuff 25 years later, it would have been good PR for Compaq/HPQ/DEC to repent for spamming and patenting it;-)
Re:Encrypted File System
on
Storage Security
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· Score: 4, Informative
AFAIK linux doesn't have an encrypted FS, nor have I heard about anything under development. If any FS hackers are reading this, this would be a handy project if you're looking for something to do.
You're not an organisation? The bar is usually pretty low for being an organisation; under the guise of freedom of association - for example, in the Netherlands it's sufficient to have more than one person to agree on being an association and, voila, you're an association-with-limited-rights (significantly, boardmembers are responsible for their own actions and the association can't beget property) - a (timely) registration at companies' house is legally required, but not registering doesn't change the fact that an association was formed, de facto, as it were.. (After all it can't be illegal not to register a non-existent association, therefore the association has to exist prior to registration.)
You can even found an association with two people, upon which the other person leaves the association, and you have a single-member-association!
The moral is.. check out the law where you are, you might be surprised.
BTW, since organisations can register multiple domain names (any one see that changing? surely vericannfilias want to make money?) you could probably found a foundation with the sole purpose of registering domain names for individuals' use - with proper safeguards etc.
Come to think of it, the Universal Light Church (be ordained now! it's free) might be up for doing something like that;-)
Seriously, I think there is NO incentive to make.org for (non-profit) organizations only..
godaddy.com ($8.95/year; $70/10 yrs; no dns included) is the cheapest I've found, and also the fastest growing registrar (they're at about 15% market share, IIRC) gkg.net charge $9.95/yr, joker.com EUR 13.92 including DNS (reseller prices as low as $6.98 in volumes, godaddy also has an extensive reseller program).
Comments should really only document those things which are not obvious to one skilled in the art. And of course endlessly duplicating comments is pointless, so stick to the novel stuff..
Of course, if you stick to these guidelines, you're not writing comments, but patents.. So better hide those from your coworkers, otherwise they'll try to claim royalties..
"Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, who is currently working at the Curie Institute in Paris, says Japanese commuter trains are often packed with people surfing the web on their mobile phones."
Ok, I am gonna ask a naive question here. I live in Hotlanta (or Atlanta, but if you have been here you know what I mean) and I have taken good ole MARTA enough. However, I have not seen anyone using a cellphone to surf the web. (Or maybe there is some new method of websurfing by putting it to your ear that I don't know about)
NTT Docomo (the Japanese PTT) offers a thing called "I-mode", basically stripped HTML 4 (cHTML) with GIF pictures only that can be viewed on phones with nifty color screens. I-mode has also been launched in The Netherlands, and I think in Germany as well (by KPN Mobile and E-Plus).
I-mode, unlike WAP 1.x, uses GPRS (packet service) by default, and handsets are required to display 256 colors. The mobile versions of TCP/IP and HTTP used (yes, I know, mobile versions, why change a winning team?) in current I-mode are the same as in WAP 2.0 though. The main difference then is in the markup language (cHTML vs. WML) and the color thing, though the newer handsets do GPRS, color and WAP 2.0 (including WML).
Since neither WAP nor I-Mode use real HTML, these Japanese people aren't surfing 'the' web, but rather a subset. Of course it helps that not many Japanese actually have a desktop computer that is hooked up to the net (what with being a pretty rocky country, running cables isn't cheap).
why people buy mp3 players shaped like cd players; the circular design is not nearly as convanient as a small rectangle. is there something I'm missing here?
rounded appliances don't crack as easily as square ones when you drop them?
Something has to change here. This is providing no service whatsoever except a means of sidestepping the billing methods of the telcos. I guarantee that one of two things will happen: phone charges will become fixed-rate, or data charges will increase for "long distance" connections.
The point is it doesn't provide a certain service. IP is connectionless without Quality of Service (there's a flag, it's not used, or it would be abused). The phone network does provide QoS, even if it's a low level of service, and it's connectionful (which can be wasteful).
The reason data is cheaper is because the costs are lower; the equipment, configurations and the underlying protocols of IP are *vastly* less complex than those for POTS/ISDN/mobile phone service.
Another reason that this would be cheaper is basically that it's a company competing for your business, that doesn't have your current phone service provider's ludicrous marketshare/monopoly on the last mile.
With the spotty service my cable provider provides, VoIP would not be a good product for me. I regularly get ping times of 300 to 500 ms, and bandwith can be constrained at peak times.
Interestingly, my cable provider also provider telephone-over-cable, and its infrastructure is said to be completely VoIP - which makes sense, it would be relatively cheap, and on you own LAN you can do a better job guaranteeing QoS. Still, even that service is not as good as the regular telco's.
This gets me wondering what interesting packet-shaping equipment my cableco's ISP has in place. It might be in their benefit to make sure VoIP I run myself has terrible service, forcing me to use their own phoneservice...
if you mean free in the way it is usually meant: free to make whatever economic choices they want to, then m$ is behaving in perfect harmony with the free market system, since the economic choices are its own
Gee whiz, you really thought this through didn't you? Doesn't it even bother you that the same economists who thought of the term "free market" also defined monopolies, and why they're bad? Whoah, in fact, steady on now your brain might hurt when you read this; isn't the thing that's so BAD about communism from an economic point of view that the goverment is a *monopoly* controlling the means of production? So maybe government isn't inherently evil, but monopolies are?? Woah...
"People in the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but a conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices," Adam Smith , "Wealth of Nations", 1766.
A free market's most succesful companies are its worst enemies -- that's a quote from some-one as well, just don't remember from whom..
A lot of pro-M$ comments today BTW, unlike normal karma-whoring -- astroturfday?
It's not cuddly - have you ever tried to cuddle a teddy bear with a metal block inside and 6 wires coming out of it? It would be difficult to enjoy, to say the least.
"The BSA member does have a legitimate need to get a return on investment"
while copyright is a legitimate right, there is NO such thing as a right on ROI. What next, companies sueing you for NOT buying OR illegally copying their software, therefore cutting off their main supplies of income, sales and litigation? Methinks not.
I've thought about this a whole 5 seconds, and it seems obvious why you would want to just prohibit some stoopid videogames ; it's cheaper than actually educating the kids' parents, and besides, you, as a legislator, would have to get educated as well - which is hard work.
Besides, just think how much money this law will save the Department of Defense by not effectively preventing videogames from training kids to be killers!;-)
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After all, if you're not biased you'll be more inclined not to form opinions on matters that have some moral implication. Let people choose for themselves! This in itself is regarded by the orthodox (of whichever creed) as unwholesomely permissive, liberal, unamerican, commie stuff..
What? Let people choose for themselves which gender they're attracted to?? Sodom and Gomorra! You are SO biased!! People working on sundays? You heathen! People working on saturdays? That's the sabbath! People working on tuesdays? You capitalist!! And so on...
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Slashdot Mirror
What I meant to say is that I am an Englishman living in Canada - hence the 'legitimate' need to play DVDs from multiple regions
As if there even is a 'non-legitimate' need!
Remember that software piracy can be a big issue for an after school computer club.
So don't forget to petition the school for a fat pipe with multiple IPs so you can hook up a few people to kazaa and gnutella at the same time without all that NAT crap.
Yes, the European Patent Office does not exist. Go away now!
A beowulf cluster of these beasties, kitted out with 802.11g wireless networking and mounted on RC model vehicles, roaming around autonimously, trying to find unsecured wifi hotspots so you can use their bandwidth for p2p!
If the checksum doesn't match, the binary changed, and the app won't run. Seems pretty sane.
Also, windows XP comes with "Driver Signing" which is basically an extortion bid to squeeze money from hardware suppliers (and perhaps to divert some of their cash from development of drivers for other OSes). Though fundamentally, it is not a bad idea to have some sort of check that the driver you just downloaded is in fact "blessed" by the manufacturer, if only for warranty purposes.
Checking checksums or signatures even does NOT equal DRM. As Linus said, this is something you can choose to use. Root gets a say in it (though in corporate environments it might still suck if you're not root).
DRM is not meant to be optional, it is meant to enforce license conditions ('rights'). Not security. Not integrity. Not trust. Making the possible impossible based not on security or convenience, but on a shrink-wrap license.
Checksums GOOD.
Signatures GOOD.
Digital Rights Management BAD.
It's NOT the same thing, folks.
You're confusing GPL for the BSD license. The GPL is "1) Do what you want with it, 2) as long as derivative works are GPL as well (see 1)".
Sony Clie handhelds run the PalmOS. The memorysticks are used for storage, not RAM, as PalmOS can't use that much memory for RAM. Which is part of the reason why they're extending PalmOS.
Businesses and "govornments" are using hardware, electricity and even a sort of carbon-based lifeforms as employees we all know the exact specs of (well almost in the latter case). How is that for a security risk?
If only government employees were closed source mutants that can't get infected with anthrax and run off of 431.8 Volts!
Actually, according to this page, the first spam message ever was by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1978. Too bad you can't patent stuff 25 years later, it would have been good PR for Compaq/HPQ/DEC to repent for spamming and patenting it ;-)
You can even found an association with two people, upon which the other person leaves the association, and you have a single-member-association!
The moral is.. check out the law where you are, you might be surprised.
BTW, since organisations can register multiple domain names (any one see that changing? surely vericannfilias want to make money?) you could probably found a foundation with the sole purpose of registering domain names for individuals' use - with proper safeguards etc.
Come to think of it, the Universal Light Church (be ordained now! it's free) might be up for doing something like that ;-)
Seriously, I think there is NO incentive to make .org for (non-profit) organizations only..
godaddy.com ($8.95/year; $70/10 yrs; no dns included) is the cheapest I've found, and also the fastest growing registrar (they're at about 15% market share, IIRC)
gkg.net charge $9.95/yr, joker.com EUR 13.92 including DNS (reseller prices as low as $6.98 in volumes, godaddy also has an extensive reseller program).
Easy. The same one as for DC.
Of course, if you stick to these guidelines, you're not writing comments, but patents.. So better hide those from your coworkers, otherwise they'll try to claim royalties..
Ok, I am gonna ask a naive question here. I live in Hotlanta (or Atlanta, but if you have been here you know what I mean) and I have taken good ole MARTA enough. However, I have not seen anyone using a cellphone to surf the web. (Or maybe there is some new method of websurfing by putting it to your ear that I don't know about)
NTT Docomo (the Japanese PTT) offers a thing called "I-mode", basically stripped HTML 4 (cHTML) with GIF pictures only that can be viewed on phones with nifty color screens. I-mode has also been launched in The Netherlands, and I think in Germany as well (by KPN Mobile and E-Plus).
I-mode, unlike WAP 1.x, uses GPRS (packet service) by default, and handsets are required to display 256 colors. The mobile versions of TCP/IP and HTTP used (yes, I know, mobile versions, why change a winning team?) in current I-mode are the same as in WAP 2.0 though. The main difference then is in the markup language (cHTML vs. WML) and the color thing, though the newer handsets do GPRS, color and WAP 2.0 (including WML).
Since neither WAP nor I-Mode use real HTML, these Japanese people aren't surfing 'the' web, but rather a subset. Of course it helps that not many Japanese actually have a desktop computer that is hooked up to the net (what with being a pretty rocky country, running cables isn't cheap).
why people buy mp3 players shaped like cd players; the circular design is not nearly as convanient as a small rectangle. is there something I'm missing here?
rounded appliances don't crack as easily as square ones when you drop them?
The point is it doesn't provide a certain service. IP is connectionless without Quality of Service (there's a flag, it's not used, or it would be abused). The phone network does provide QoS, even if it's a low level of service, and it's connectionful (which can be wasteful).
The reason data is cheaper is because the costs are lower; the equipment, configurations and the underlying protocols of IP are *vastly* less complex than those for POTS/ISDN/mobile phone service.
Another reason that this would be cheaper is basically that it's a company competing for your business, that doesn't have your current phone service provider's ludicrous marketshare/monopoly on the last mile.
Interestingly, my cable provider also provider telephone-over-cable, and its infrastructure is said to be completely VoIP - which makes sense, it would be relatively cheap, and on you own LAN you can do a better job guaranteeing QoS. Still, even that service is not as good as the regular telco's.
This gets me wondering what interesting packet-shaping equipment my cableco's ISP has in place. It might be in their benefit to make sure VoIP I run myself has terrible service, forcing me to use their own phoneservice...
if you mean free in the way it is usually meant: free to make whatever economic choices they want to, then m$ is behaving in perfect harmony with the free market system, since the economic choices are its own
Gee whiz, you really thought this through didn't you? Doesn't it even bother you that the same economists who thought of the term "free market" also defined monopolies, and why they're bad? Whoah, in fact, steady on now your brain might hurt when you read this; isn't the thing that's so BAD about communism from an economic point of view that the goverment is a *monopoly* controlling the means of production? So maybe government isn't inherently evil, but monopolies are?? Woah...
"People in the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but a conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices," Adam Smith , "Wealth of Nations", 1766.
A free market's most succesful companies are its worst enemies -- that's a quote from some-one as well, just don't remember from whom..
A lot of pro-M$ comments today BTW, unlike normal karma-whoring -- astroturfday?
A product with a trademark name its buyers can't remember if any there was..
You mean a Furby?
"The BSA member does have a legitimate need to get a return on investment"
while copyright is a legitimate right, there is NO such thing as a right on ROI. What next, companies sueing you for NOT buying OR illegally copying their software, therefore cutting off their main supplies of income, sales and litigation? Methinks not.
Besides, just think how much money this law will save the Department of Defense by not effectively preventing videogames from training kids to be killers! ;-)
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Surely the Area 51 people would have figured out some better way by now?
--
After all, if you're not biased you'll be more inclined not to form opinions on matters that have some moral implication. Let people choose for themselves! This in itself is regarded by the orthodox (of whichever creed) as unwholesomely permissive, liberal, unamerican, commie stuff..
What? Let people choose for themselves which gender they're attracted to?? Sodom and Gomorra! You are SO biased!! People working on sundays? You heathen! People working on saturdays? That's the sabbath! People working on tuesdays? You capitalist!! And so on...
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